Sunday, February 24, 2008

For those of you who think sweet potatoes are only for the holidays I'm here to call you to repentance. Full of vitamins and good stuff they're tasty any time of year--especially when they're combined with things like cranberries and syrup.

A note here on the difference between sweet potatoes and yams. What we commonly call "yams" in America are actually just a darker, sweeter variety of sweet potato. What you see in the produce section are two varieties of the same thing, one is just darker, smaller and sweeter than the other. I prefer to cook with these smaller ones myself unless I'm looking for a dryer texture such as you'd see with a regular potato.

Actual yams are native to South America and don't often show up in American markets. They're popular in the Caribbean and South America, can grow up to seven feet long (What?? Talk about your monster tubers!) and are dark like the bark of a tree with purplish flesh. I think I'd know one if I saw one now, based on that horrifying description.

But regardless of this slight course correction, this recipe works better with the smaller, darker variety that we Americans erroneously call yams. Got it?

Mix the syrup, mustard, oil, pepper and salt together then stir in the cranberries and sweet potatoes until well coated. Pour the mixture into a greased casserole dish and bake at 400 degrees for 40 minutes, stirring every ten minutes, until the potatoes are soft (but not mushy).

I just wanted to say HI! I read your post on misspelled words and saw you used to work on the Economics of Aging project. I did too! I worked at BYU on the project. It was so funny some of the things you came across....

Thank you for this recipe! This year I am trying to make healthy substitutions in our diet, and one of those is replacing rice and potatoes with sweet pototoes on occasion. I will be trying this soon--maybe even this week! :)

My husband and I love to combine sweet potatoes, yams, yukon golds, and yellow onion (all chopped in bite sized pieces) with a bit of olive oil, seasoning salt, and homemade basil pesto. We roast it in the oven for about 45 minutes, and consider it the perfect side dish to just about anything. (Truth be told, I could eat it as my main entree at least twice a week. I'm such a potato fanatic.)

Thanks for sharing another way to use sweet potatoes. Variety is wonderful to have, especially when we have the same company over and over. =)

Sweet potatoes are......basically too sweet. Having said that if you distributed in a souffle that might just make it palatable, if I only had to eat a spoonful or two......make that teaspoonful.Cheers

Great post! A friend of mine, just cooks her sweet potatoes whole in the microwave, slices them like a "chip", then tosses lightly in butter. We had to fight our toddlers for them!

Just a note, the true yams I have had, may have been dark on the outside, but were light on the inside. A Nigerian friend made them for me and they were quite delightful - not frightful. :-) I was interested to hear they have true yam in S. America, too - I had only previously associated them with Africa.